It’s a big Great Pumpkin

Hi! I’m Clipper. Did you come to play today? Be careful, we have a ghost on the front porch. Not a real one, but a huge pumpkin carved to look like one. I am sorry to be so late, but a lot has been happening this month at my house! How about at your’s?

Marie dressed me up as a clown for her kindergarten class Halloween party, and I don’t like it one bit! Puff was left alone because she is so tiny that she can’t go to Marie’s Halloween Party today. So I am going as a baby clown in Marie’s dolly buggy. She’s giving me treats to do it, so I guess I am a baby puppy clown!

Marie is going as a witch, though why a witch needs a baby puppy clown is something that I can’t figure out. Witches usually have black cats, but Puff is too tiny to go. She might get stepped on in all of the fuss.

Zachary is going as a pumpkin carver, so he is in an apron that is a bit orange down the front and has his small carved pumpkin in his arms. He wasn’t a very careful carver and got stitches on his hand, but they are healing nicely. He won’t let me lick them all better, and that is frustrating because I just know I could be a big help.

Getting Zachary to Dr. Bob for stitches was just part of the busy stuff this month! Daddy David kept saying “Blood and Gore!” over and over again, and it made Zachary laugh so he wouldn’t feel the pain. I didn’t laugh because it was scary. Zachary was being careful, but his pumpkin was bumpy and his little knife slipped. It was a nasty accident.

We had rain and more rain. Mommy Diana said it was raining cats and dogs, but I didn’t see any in our garden. It did help the pumpkins grow their last big amount! Wow, they are huge! Daddy David had to use a Bobcat to move one of them. He grows competition size pumpkins. They are about as large as a car! Not really, but if you have to use a Bobcat to move something, it is huge.

Daddy David came in one day very upset about one of his pumpkins. He said there was a hole in it and that a chipmunk had moved in! It had ruined the pumpkin, and now it was eating all of the precious seeds that Daddy David wanted to save to grow next year! That was a big problem for Daddy David, and it worried Mommy Diana, too. She likes to see Daddy David happy, not upset. Everything in the garden is in her care until the final harvest in the fall, and Mr. Chipmunk and his family were not welcome visitors!

The big problem was how to get the chipmunk out without ruining the pumpkin. Daddy David tried banging on it, and nothing happened. There was just a little scrabble sound. Zach helped him turn it upside down, and Mr. Chipmunk peeked out and then went back inside. Finally, Daddy David was really serious. He lifted the whole pumpkin up 3 inches with the Bobcat and dropped it down, THUMP!

That did it! It scared Mr. Chipmunk so much that he jumped out and ran for the bushes!

The big pumpkin ended up as a family pumpkin on the porch. Mr. Chipmunk’s hole is the hole of the ghost’s mouth! It is a very scary pumpkin, and Puff does not like it at all. I think she likes Mr. Chipmunk’s smell, though. She spends a lot of time sniffing that hole with her fur all fluffed out as if she were frightened.

So, I think you can see why we’ve had a very busy month and my letter to you is so late! I am very sorry.